A death in the family

A relative dies during the opening few days of January.

Although terminally ill, their death is no less shocking or devastating.

You can see the effect it is having on your loved ones but feel powerless to do anything. 

You're surprised by your own reaction to the death and the tears you're shedding for someone who, though you were close to as a child, had been something of a ghost-like presence in your life over the past few years.

The long sighs, the staring off into the distance. The sadness etched on a sibling's face.

That he died alone, with very little to leave the world, adds an extra layer of sadness.

That the confusion he left behind and its lingering impact leaves you frustrated you can't do more.

Being reunited with family who these days you only see at funerals.  They looker older; shorter; greyer; have less hair; are thinner; are fatter.

The coffin and a single flower arrangement. 

The regression to your childhood as you stand in your relative's house and remember all the family gatherings and the laughs and smiles that you've enjoyed in this room.

You promise to keep in touch, to plan a visit but acknowledge that probably the next time you all meet will be at the next funeral. You look around and wonder who, of those in the room, it might be.

Your heart breaks a little more.

Music in the 80's

While I write, I'm listening to Southern Sun by Boy & Bear, a tune I heard on BBC 6Music about five minutes ago and subsequently downloaded to my iPod. By comparison, in 1985, there was a song I'd heard on an episode of 'Moonlighting', the American detective show starring Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis. I wasn't too sure what it was so I wrote a letter to Annie Nightingale who had a request show on BBC Radio 1 on Sunday evenings and I tried to describe as best I could what the song sounded like. A week or two later, she read out my letter on the show and played me said song. Sympathy For The Devil by The Rolling Stones. That was how I discovered music in the 80's.

It is not overstating the case to say how important Annie Nightingale's show was to me in the 80's.  It was my ritual every Sunday night, once the chart show was over, to lay on my bed, usually in semi or pitch darkness, with the glow of the tuner on my hi-fi the only light in the room, listening to her playing music that opened up my mind to the possibilities of other worlds and sounds beyond what was played on Top Of The Pops or Radio 1. Don't get me wrong, I was a regular and avid watcher of TOTP, but to hear artists like The Cocteau Twins, Joni Mitchell and Led Zeppelin being played, well it was too exciting for words.

TV also had a big part to play in my discovery of music. In 1982, Channel 4 was launched and with it a music programme featuring presenters who, to an impressionable teenager like me, were unbelievably cool because they tripped over their words and swore on live television. The Tube, broadcast live on Friday evenings from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne was ground-breaking television and paved the way for shows of a similar ilk, such as The Word. Jools Holland, Paula Yates and Muriel Gray were witty, stylish and cool. Then there was The Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC2 with presenters like Bob Harris, John Peel and Mark Ellen. Not as cool perhaps, but no less important.  And I was always deeply envious that I didn't live in the North West so I could watch Tony Wilson on Granada Tonight. Another ground-breaker.

Television continues to produce shows profiling new music. Later with Jools Holland is a great show to discover some amazing new artists. And Channel 4 and BBC4 produce some quality late-night output. But it's fair to say that television's role in launching new music is not as vital as it once was.

Because now we have the internet.

It has never been easier to gain access to an incredible stockpile of music than it is now. Anyone born after say, 1985, doesn't know what it was to try to find music that was a bit more interesting than the normal chart fodder. Now it is literally at your fingertips with sites like MySpace, Spotify, LastFM, iTunes, Facebook, Bandcamp etc. The list is pretty endless.  And then there are the thousands of digital and internet radio stations out there.

These days, I find most of my music through BBC 6Music and Twitter. 6Music is my new Annie Nightingale.  The DJ's care about the music they play, a vast majority of them are or were musicians themselves. You can hear the joy in their voices when they play a song they love or when they share a new album with their listeners.

Twitter is also an amazing resource for discovering new music. There are people I follow who are musicians, who work in the industry, who write about music and then there are those who just love music in all its forms and with whom I can have great conversations and share recommendations. You can even talk to (or stalk) your favourite bands and DJs about music.

You can also just wave your smartphone in the general direction of a piece of music and an app will tell you what the song is!  How incredible is that?